Hogwarts: A History
by write-notright
Summary: They met two by two and then all at once. Magic is their one similarity. None of them get along at first, but really, what good friends do? How the Founders became friends and the true history of Hogwarts and her houses unveiled. BIG FOUR/RotBTD fanfic. Hiccup, Merida, Jack and Rapunzel.


With hesitant steps, she steered deeper into the groves of trees. Beneath her boots, moss crumpled and grass was crushed, dry leaves crinkled and twigs cracked. The blue cape she had quickly draped over her shoulders flowed with the wind, helping little with the cold.

She shouldn't be scared – she went through these woods regularly, and the last time she'd gotten lost was five years ago when she was eleven. All those times however, Merida at least had had Angus with her, even when she had been lost. But Angus had been sick lately and with the battles going on with the Vikings even the princess didn't live in luxury – there were no spare horses. She was lucky to have been able to keep Angus.

It was an effort not to picture the roasted pork and potatoes with gravy that they once had been able to enjoy. Now things were rationed, the weights tilting generously in the villagers' favour – they got the most food. Merida moaned and whined about it every meal time, which was no longer a family occasion as it once might have been. Secretly, though, Merida understood that they could only eat the bare minimum. While the words her mother nagged on with princess duties religiously, a lot of it was true and Merida knew that. A leader must sacrifice for his people. A princess must sacrifice for her people.

It was not dark. The sun shone brightly directly above the canopy of trees and glinted from time to times through gaps in the leaves and branches. Merida had planned this day perfectly to fit with her mother's, father's, brothers', servants' and maid's schedules. Mid-day on a Sunday everyone was busy. Merida's father was out for the whole day, checking up on the frontlines. Her Mother went into the village to help the people for most of the day, and the triplets went with her. The servants and maids were free for the day.

Sundays had once been a family day for Merida. They would all go out into the clearing and have a picnic. Nowadays, it was just a day off. Merida was allowed free reign for what she did on this day. The servants and maids didn't check on her, the boys were out and there wasn't any mother to nag at her.

In a way, it frightened her. Even in the past when they'd had battles, this day was rarely altered outside of the weather. It reminded Merida that this war was a lot more serious than the others had been. It terrified her to her very core.

Merida passed the clearing, giving it a passing glance and noticing, even though she had barely looked, that the place was so empty it was eerie. This place had once been a place of celebration, a place where the villagers would come and speak to their leaders and buy things from stalls and drink ale straight from barrels rolled from the pub.

Instead, it was small plot of land teeming with wild shrubs and encrusted with a layer of frost.

She did not look long enough to see the foot prints.

Instead, something else caught her attention. A light shone from the far end of the clearing, amidst the tree trunks, its light a hue of blue. The light shivered and swayed, shadows around it shifting haphazardly to follow the rays.

Merida's blue eyes widened.

_"Some say that Will o' the Wisps can lead you to your fate."_

She did not stand to think long about the words that her mother had once said. She had seen this wisps before, when she was much younger, and there was no doubt that this light was the same glow the wisps had brought in her memories. And while Merida wasn't religious like her mother, she was very superstitious. The lights led you to your fate, your destiny. And Merida was an impatient girl – she knew and admitted that herself – and she knew that if her destiny came into view, she would sprint to catch it. And she did.

Shifting her bow into her arms, she pulled an arrow onto the string and held it ready at her side. Though she no longer had lessons with her father on shooting, she had practised by herself both on the ground and on Angus at every interval she got. Merida never missed a shot.

She cut through the clearing, reaching the wisp quickly and barely losing her breath. When the light flickered out of view, Merida did not look around confused as she had when she was younger. Instead, she followed the eerie whispers and found the next wisp, and the next and the next.

It was only when she reached the last wisp did she realize where this was leading her. The sound of running water rushed to her ears, and when she stopped and listened closer, she could hear fish jumping and slamming into the bottom of the shallow and small pond. And even louder was the sound of splashing water.

There was something else, too. Merida paused and adjusted her quiver and fixed her cape so it wouldn't get in her way. Something told her whatever it was out there, eating fishing from the sound of it, was dangerous. The thought of the Demon Bear brought shivers in her back and goose bumps on her arms: she tried not to think about how the blood had splattered when the beast had ripped her father's leg off, or how he had screamed…

She twisted her head, as silently as she could manage, around the tree trunk she had her back to. Her hair bounced around her shoulders and a lock fell over her eyes, taking away half of her sight. But she didn't move to push it behind her ear: she didn't want to let go of her bow, and blowing it away, she knew from experience, would just make it fall back on her face.

Even with the red curl blocking half her view, she could still make out some of the animal. It jumped into the stream, its skin black and sleek. It was about two times the size of Merida, and she could see wings folded at its side that she guessed were possibly even bigger.

It caught several fish with relative ease. It's jaw snapped open and shut as the fish flapped and squeaked inside its mouth. It gurgled as it swallowed and then sighed happily.

Merida stared for a few moments, eyeing the beast. It reminded her of Mordu. It's black, sleek and shiny 'skin' were a similar colour to that of Mordu's fur. It was certainly as big as the bear had been. But Merida wasn't stupid; bears never grow wings, not even demon ones. But watching the animal, the way it snapped the head off of a fish without any difficulty, the way most of the water jumped out of the stream when the animal splashed, the sheer size: Merida had been right. This was a dangerous animal.

She scanned it over for weakness. The fact that it didn't protect it's back meant its odd skin must have been strong. It's neck seemed more vulnerable but the animal didn't try hard to protect it, so it must have been the same snake-like skin that protected it. Her eyes trailed down towards it's long tail, a line of bumps that grew smaller and smaller the further down the tail it went. And then Merida noticed it's fins. One of them was gone. The side of the tail, where the second fin should have been, had a large, pink scar.

Merida was sure she had read somewhere that the tail and symmetry where important to flight? Could the beast fly?

She shook her head, the red bush of hair bouncing along with it. This thing was dangerous. They had enough problems at home with the Vikings and Saxons, they couldn't afford to be handling this thing as well.

Her trusted bow shifted in one hand, whilst the other hand slipped the arrow against the nocking point and pulled the string back, twisting her entire body and aiming at the animal in the pond…

Except she couldn't. A sharp pain at scalp made her yelp and the arrow she shot hit a stone and fell into the pond, the fire dying out quickly in the water. The beast was no longer there, though that didn't matter because she would have missed anyway.

She turned her head quickly, to find out where the beast had gone and what she had caught her hair on.

She was met with green eyes. Not the toxic green that the dragon had had, and not a forest green like one of the maids, but a lime green that seemed to glow in the shade. Unruly brown hair swept over them, the tips mingling with the man's eyelashes (Merida wondered for a split second how that didn't annoy him).

His arm held her hair against the bark of the tree. Merida jumped to get away from him, but not only did the pain in her scalp stop her but the growl from her right did as well. The beast was beside the man, circling them. It's pupils, previously large and circular, were thin and cat-like now. It's bared teeth did not help either.

Merida decided it was best not to move. She pressed her back against the bark desperately, finger nails digging into the bark, hoping it would open up and consume her. Her heart beat faster and faster.

She eyed the frown on the man's face and then his eyes that she couldn't for the life of her explain how they could be so dark and yet so bright at the same time. His gaze went from her to the pond that the animal had been in and then back to her. His eyes widened slightly, and his weight on her hair never left.

"That fire…" he murmured and then looked into her blue eyes, which were wide with fright, "that fire… that was magic, wasn't it?"

She stared him down even as her hands trembled. That was it – the truth, the truth not even her mother knew. Magic ran through Merida's veins, strong but uncontrolled. She could only will it out with a medium – her arrows, normally.

But no one was supposed to know. Magic was infamous. Illegal. Dangerous. Unholy. Everything a princess can't be, shouldn't be, shouldn't practise or have. Everything her mother hated. Her father hated. The whole village hated.

Her strength wavered. His eyes bore down on hers' and she turned her head away, ignoring the pain in her scalp that came from the movement.

"Of course not," she bit out, not looking at him, "magic is unholy. May the gods strike down whoever works with it." She paused for a minute, wondering if it was right to say the last bit. What if they did? What if she died because of those words?

She should never have followed the wisps. To think, she went so willingly, so happily! They led you to your _fate_. Your death, in other words. How had she ever thought it meant destiny?

There was a moment of silence.

"Well then, I guess I should have dropped dead by now. Your gods aren't very reliable, are they? Tell me the truth; was that magic?" Merida thought about his words. Should have died by now? Was that to do with what she had said? Did he…did he have magic, too?

"D-do –" Merida stopped and yelled at herself internally. A princess doesn't stutter. No, a leader doesn't stutter! She raised herself a little taller and stopped her hands from trembling by digging her nails into the bark. She didn't turn her head. "Do you have magic too?"

Once again, it was silent for a moment. There was a lot of silent moments. It wasn't as awkward as it probably seemed to anyone who was watching – the adrenalin pumping through Merida's blood made it seem as if everything was going too fast.

"Look me in the eyes and you'll see." The voice growled. Merida could pick up a sly sound from it, as if he was going to prank someone.

She didn't want to look. Who knew what kind of magic he had. Maybe looking him in the eyes could kill you! Or he possessed you, or made you fall in love forcefully. She wasn't an idiot, she was smarter than that. She wasn't going to fall for a trick as simple as the one he had placed. She was not some fish who followed the bait and then got served for dinner.

But her eyes moved upwards, and her head tilted and the part of her red hair that wasn't caught between his arm and the tree trunk bounced around her shoulders and her cerulean eyes met his lime green ones. And then she saw it.

His eyes had gone from normal, human-like, even though they had an impossible colour, and angry with circular pupils to an electric green, leaving an odd mist that tinted the air lime. They seemed to glow. But the most startling difference wasn't their colour – it was their pupils. They had elongated and thinned, like a cats'.

And then, in front of her very eyes, they grew and then shrunk back into a human's eye. She heard her bow, which had been hung from her arm, fall to the ground dimly as her hands went slack. The man smiled and slowly, he lifted his arm from her hair. "We're not so different." Merida didn't move.

The beast growled from next to her, and she jumped away quickly. She had completely forgotten about the beast. It prowled threateningly, until the man growled something unintelligible towards it and turned away to walk towards the pond. Merida's eyes followed him, watching as the animal followed behind him in what seemed like annoyance. She wanted to yell something, but she found her throat wouldn't listen to her.

And when their bodies grew smaller and further away from her, she blinked, swallowed, gasped in a breath, and then ran. She ran faster than she'd ever ran before, jumping over every fallen branch and hurtling between the trees and bushes, crossing the clearing that had lost the sheet of frost over it and reaching the castle at record time.

She slammed the door of her bedroom shut behind her, as if the man and his beast had followed her all the way home, and tried to catch her breath.

She lost it moments later when she remembered where her bow was.

The lights floated in the sky slowly, different to the stars and yet at the same time so similar. Rapunzel flipped through her book quickly, looking for anything that could describe this phenomenon. She had read about comets – shooting stars, her mother called them, - but they sounded different to these lights. They came in packs, groups of hundreds at a time and only ever one day of the year.

That day of the year. Her birthday. The day _she_ was born. It made Rapunzel feel important in the world, to have the lights shine like this for her birthday. As if those lights were meant for her.

She sighed as she watched them. A wind blew in and made her shiver, the pages of the book flipping and landing on a completely new subject. Rapunzel wrapped her long hair around her tighter. If she sang, she could be warm, but somehow she enjoyed the cold. It made her feel real, alive, in a world where nobody knew her.

She laid her head against the window sill and stared at the lights as one by one they dimmed and blinked out. The event was almost over. The one interesting thing that happened in her year was almost finished. She sighed and waited for a few minutes, when the final light disappeared from the sky and left nothing but the stars.

Rapunzel sat there even after the lights went out. The mysterious lights had stopped her from thinking about her mother, who hadn't come home for about two weeks. The worry clung to her heart, freezing it in a way the wind never did to her skin.

She'd almost finished all the food. There was a plant that grew strawberries, but it was winter and the berries wouldn't be enough to fill Rapunzel anyway. There was still two loaves of bread as well as a chunk of cheese she didn't like, a small block of butter and some sugar. If she tried hard, she could make them last another week or so.

The thought of that made her heart constrict. Mother had never left longer than a few days. If she came back longer than she had told Rapunzel, she'd come home with hazelnut soup and an apology. But a week by itself was longer than she'd ever gone. It made her worry. What if the bad people outside had done something? Or the monsters had hurt her?

The blonde shook her head. She couldn't keep worrying, it wasn't good for her. With one last longing look outside, she shut the windows tightly and reached to close the book in her lap.

She had almost shut the book when the image painted within it caught her eye. There it was: a starry night sky, and there, between what she recognized as Canis Major and Orion, was a dot of light unlike the rest. The others were smaller and white, whilst this one was rectangular and let off a yellow glow.

One hand ran over the picture, unsure if she should ruin the only interesting thing in her life by finding out what the lights were. Her green eyes closed as she drew in a deep breath and turned the pages. It was a few moments before she opened her eyes. On the paper, in large, bold writing was 'lanterns'.

For half an hour, Rapunzel read. She soaked in all the knowledge like a rag soaked up dishwater. She likened the lanterns to animals – they were one thing, but there many types. Normal lanterns, lanterns that you hung in a room or outside, hand-held lanterns, lanterns that floated in water and finally…sky lanterns. Lanterns that floated in the sky.

Rapunzel didn't know how she felt about her little mystery being solved. The event had always seemed supernatural to her. She had always believed that the lights were one mystery she would never solve, something that would always be unknown to her.

The one exciting, different event in her life had been reduced to human babble, held back by scientific boundaries.

She felt tears well up in her eyes and she choked up for a moment. She clenched her dress, as if somehow she could grasp her heart and cup it in her hands and hide it away from the world that it barely knew. The wind blew, chilling her bare arms and making the wet lines on her face cold.

It took a few moments, but Rapunzel calmed down. Mother hated self-pity. If she found her wallowing in it, she would be in for a big lecture. She wiped the tears away and looked down again at the leather bound book.

Though tears stained the pages, the words were legible. She scanned over it, and quickly flipped to the page it had directed.

She laid the book open and slid her hand against the pages. Several diagrams were scattered across the page with little bits of information between them. At the top of the sheet, the words 'How to make sky lanterns' was written in black ink, each flick curling prettily. Eyes running down the book, Rapunzel smiled softly before rushing for an old dress and a hand full of sticks from the large kindling stock.

Following the book's instructions, Rapunzel laid out and cut the fabric that had previously been a dress to size, laying the twigs in their designated areas and tying them together at the corners. It took about an hour to get right – the string wouldn't stay in place in some corners and on others it would unravel completely.

While it annoyed her to no end, Rapunzel pushed on. She would get this right, and she would get it right before sunrise.

In fact, she did. Hours before the sun would rise and hours after the sun had set, the sky lantern in Rapunzel's hand didn't unravel or undo or collapse. It sat steady and firm in her hands. Rapunzel's green eyes glowed.

Even if Mother wasn't there, she would enjoy this day! It was her birthday and she deserved to be able to celebrate it.

She took a step towards the window, with the lantern in one hand a small lit candle in the other. Then she took another step, and another. And with some difficulty, the blonde managed to open the window and defend the candle from the cold wind that blew in at the same time.

With a smile, Rapunzel spared a moment to stare happily at the stars, and then at her lantern. She imagined herself flying towards the holes to heaven and sighed. If she was never going to get close to the sky, then her lantern would do it for her.

Shifting the candle into the lantern, Rapunzel held out the lantern, leaning far out and balancing the miniature hot air balloon on her fingers. And then she closed her eyes, and wished, and as she did, the lantern fell from her fingers.

And drifted slowly to the ground.

Rapunzel stared for a moment and felt tears prickle at her eyes, again. It must have meant her dream wouldn't be coming true, didn't it? Was it so bad that she wanted to be free, to have an adventure?

She wiped the tears with the side of her palm. She'd never cried twice in the same day. The blonde couldn't help but feel weak for it. Her hair clustered behind her as she leaned against the window sill, nails scarring the wood with crescent moons.

They would still be there, years later.

A tear fell from her green eyes as the lantern drifted closer and closer to the ground. In a way, Rapunzel felt thrilled. The ground, the grass, the mud, the earth; she wanted that just as much as she wanted the sky. But to want both was greedy, so she settled for the sky.

Her hands trembled as she watched, as her dreams hit rock bottom, when in the corner of her vision, she saw blue. Her eyes flickered towards it, and found a small blob of blue, glowing light. Rapunzel rubbed her eyes and leaned further out, to see the light disappear.

And then reappear a few metres away. Rapunzel leaned over to look at them. She didn't feel the gust of gentle wind that blew the lantern back into the sky, or the ice that trailed the edge of her window sill. Instead she stared at the blue orbs that kept moving closer and closer towards her.

Eventually it came close enough to reach. The girl stared at it with curious eyes. What could be made out of? What could it even be?

She leaned right over and down and the tips of her fingers almost grazed the blue orb, until it disappeared in a bout of child-like giggling, causing Rapunzel to jump.

And for Rapunzel to reach the odd blue orb, she had to lean right out of her tower, with her knees holding her to the ground. And when the blue orb startled her, she slipped.

Right off of her tower.

The blonde did not scream as she fell. She did not yell or whimper or cry. She stared, watched as her tower window grew taller and further away – or rather, as she grew further down. Blonde hair whipped around in the wind in a flurry, and Rapunzel barely noticed. Was this how she was going to die? Was this how it was all going to end? She had wanted and adventure, wanted to be free from the tower, and, in a way, she would be getting her wish.

Oh, how had she ever thought leaning to touch the phantom was a good idea? How could she have been so stupid?

Rapunzel's body twisted so that she was seeing the ground. The soft grass wouldn't cushion her fall, she knew. The dandelions wouldn't mourn her death, she knew. She screwed her eyes shut and wished it would be painless, and just as she did, she didn't see the pile of snow conjured in her path.

Rapunzel did not die that night. But her wish, that day, came true. Nothing would be the same again.

WOOHOO first chapter yes! Please review, favourite and follow and remind me of any grammar mistakes.


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